RTE goes mobile with Three
22-05-2007
by Stephen Errity

Pat Kenny and Ryan Tubridy will be coming to a mobile screen near you soon thanks to a new streaming deal announced Tuesday by RTE and the Three mobile network.

"The launch of RTE Entertainment on Three's mobile TV service marks the beginning of an exciting and innovative era in the way that viewers can enjoy RTE entertainment and lifestyle programmes," said RTE Publishing's executive director Muirne Laffan at the launch.

"Building on the news and sport clips that have been available on Three mobile over the past two years, we are now making selected entertainment and lifestyle content available. It is part of RTE's strategy to make content and programmes available in a range of formats on multiple platforms," she added.

The partnership will see RTE shows such as 'The Late Late Show', 'Off the Rails' 'Tubridy Tonight' and 'Show Me The Money' being made available to both pre-pay and bill-paying Three customers at a rate of EUR0.50 for a period of 24 hours.

"We see your mobile as being your personal TV -- no sharing the remote, so you can watch what you want, when you want, where you want, up and down the country," said Three's head of entertainment David Riley. He added that RTE was the first of many mobile TV channels set to be launched by the network in the coming weeks.

The level of public interest in mobile TV services remains to be seen. A consumer mobility survey conducted by Canalys earlier this month revealed that nearly half of European consumers had no interest in mobile TV services, with a much greater proportion of those surveyed said they would like to have access to a GPS service through the mobile.

ENN recently trialled O2's mobile TV service, which will make TV channel broadcasts, not just individual programmes, accessible by mobile. During the trial, the public in general found the concept highly appealing but were concerned that the cost of such a service, which would probably be subscription-based, could be too high.

Research by Screen Digest has predicted that mobile TV will generate EUR4.7 billion in revenue from 140 million subscribers by 2011. Mobile TV services have taken off in Japan and South Korea, where just under 6 million people watch broadcast mobile TV, and in Italy, where such services have already signed up close to half a million subscribers in the space of a few months.